23

Franz Ferdinand Maike returned to his office from the coffee machine in the hall with a plastic cup in hand. The telephone rang, and Maike took the call without putting down the cup. At the other end there was a mumbling gentleman who sounded like Holger Ehrmann from the Ministry of the Interior, and who wanted to know he was talking to the right person, to Maike.

‘In what regard?’

‘A Supplementary Information Request at the National Entry, SIRENE for short.’

Maike put down the cup.

‘Why aren’t the BKA talking to me directly?’

‘Because it was flagged in the Schengen Information System. Don’t ask me.’

‘Who should I be asking, then? What is this really about?’

Something that had been flagged could be really tricky. It meant that a search initiated from outside the country had been blocked because there were significant legal obstacles in Germany. Maike, who’d been in Homicide for over ten years, hadn’t seen one yet. They usually went in the direction of international terrorism, customs and border police.

‘As far as I know you’re working the Christina Borg case. There’s a suspect – her name is Judith Kepler.’

Maike asked himself if there was an agency left that hadn’t heard of Judith Kepler. The woman was omnipresent in a way that was slowly becoming eerie. He sat down and shooed the screensaver off his computer.

‘Do you have her yet?’ Ehrmann changed his tone from friendly to authoritarian, which Maike didn’t like at all. ‘Do you know her whereabouts?’

‘Unfortunately I’m not authorised to give you information about the state of the investigation.’

‘Then I’ll just answer for you: You don’t have her. And you haven’t made an effort to. By now there is an international warrant out for her arrest. The Rikspolis informed us over half an hour ago. Why don’t you know?’

Maike felt his nerves start to fray. Yeah, why not? He looked at the monitor. The box with urgent messages was blinking dark red. Shit.

‘Being flagged means that even when she’s caught there’s no extradition, right?’ he asked. At least that’s what he had learned at the police academy.

‘Exactly.’

‘And why is Kepler wanted by the Swedish Federal Police?’

Ehrmann sighed because he apparently had to put on his glasses first, then look at his computer or the expedited application.

‘Murder.’

Maike didn’t say anything. Judith Kepler was one of many people who were being considered in the Christina Borg case. He remembered a grouchy looking janitor, Fricke, and a completely disinterested neighbour whose dog nearly peed on his shoes. Borg had frequented the dive bar Zum Klabautermann, and had brought a friend along once. She had sought contact with Quirin Kaiserley because of a supposed microfilm with top-secret contents. The bar and microfilm were incongruent to say the least, but at least the latter was a connecting point. The summons for Kaiserley’s official deposition was already in his outbox.

But Judith Kepler was a cleaning lady. It was unusual that so many different agencies were interested in someone like her and now the material was being requested from Munich to Schwerin. All at once, significant suspicious facts were piling up against her. Sweden even expected extradition, and one of the very top brass had just blocked it. How nice, Maike thought, that I get to hear about it too.

‘Murder,’ he repeated. ‘But how did the Swedish police connect that with the Borg case?’

‘Because Kepler apparently killed the mother after the daughter. Irene Borg was found dead in her apartment in Malmö last night. There’s a witness. And he described the dead woman’s visitor fairly clearly.’

Maike clicked on the blinking symbol. An internal memo opened and confirmed what Ehrmann had just told him.

‘So why no extradition then?’

‘Ask the Minister of the Interior.’ Ehrmann hung up.

That’s exactly what Maike wouldn’t do. But he would ask his colleagues in Malmö. And then Kepler would be on the hook.

Klaus Dombrowski knew them all. The nice ones, who politely asked if they could steal a minute of his precious time. The hot-headed ones, who didn’t wait, but got right to the point. And the disinterested ones who just acted as if they were fulfilling their duty, but had given up believing in its existence long ago.

Maike must have been new, because he was all of it at once: pleasant, quick and still not completely focused, as if he wasn’t very well informed about the state of his own investigation.

‘So you say that Judith Kepler hasn’t left Berlin in the past two days, and was at her place of work. Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘No idea,’ Dombrowski grumbled. ‘Because I’m not a turncoat?’

The wheels were spinning furiously in his head. What the hell was wrong with Judith? He had known her for two years and she’d never once behaved strangely. On the contrary: she was one of his most reliable employees. She appeared to have understood that she had caught the last exit on the highway to nowhere. He had even considered making her the head of the cleaning crew soon. But in the past three days he’d got the distinct feeling that Judith Kepler was a total stranger.

A woman who everyone from Homicide, to former BND agents, and who-the-hell-else were looking for. And of course he was looking for her too. After all, he was her boss.

‘I have over three hundred employees. Some of them start at five in the morning, the others are clocking off at the same time. Sometimes I don’t get to shake every one of their hands.’

‘We’re investigating a murder. Perhaps that will encourage you to consider my situation here – and yours, not to mention Kepler’s. Where is she?’

Dombrowski huffed and turned to his computer.

‘Sankt Gertrauden. Early shift.’

‘Till when?’

‘Two thirty. 14:30 Central European Summer Time.’

The homicide cop reached for his phone and dialled a number. He was patched through to the hospital and then hung back up.

‘Then let’s have a look. You could have saved yourself a fair amount of trouble if you’d said that earlier.’

‘But I did.’

‘To whom?’

‘To your colleagues. They’re the ones who ran in here.’

The detective didn’t like the sound of that at all.

‘Colleagues?’ he asked. ‘Do you have names?’

‘Don’t remember. I only remember my own arrests.’

Dombrowski remembered the demos and the squats and the days when he had marched arm in arm through the streets with men and women chanting ‘Hey ho, the cops have got to go!’ Not to mention ‘Long live international solidarity!’ Several of his fellow combatants had washed up in high office and now acted as if they’d never held a cobblestone in their life. One in particular was now sitting somewhere in America, enjoying a professorship and the third or fourth young wife and taking it easy on his retired minister’s pension. That’s the other way international solidarity could be seen. Bollocks.

The homicide detective looked at his watch.

‘We’ll have her in ten minutes.’ He glared at Dombrowski, intending to be intimidating. But it would take more than that. Dombrowski leaned back and folded his arms over his substantial belly, yearning for a cigarillo. Inhaled, this time.

‘If not, then you’ll be prepared to accompany me down to the station.’

‘Can I still call my lawyer?’

‘As often and as many of them as you want.’

Maike motioned to the telephone, Dombrowski thought about it. Was Kepler worth it? And what did international solidarity mean if it didn’t even tie him to his employees? The cops had nothing on him, nothing at all. He thought about whether he still had the small bag of grass hidden underneath his desk drawer or if he had enjoyed it outside with Josef and co. on one of those wonderfully balmy summer evenings. It was the only thing he smoked these days, and only once in a while. Come on. Not even three grams. The judge at the arraignment wouldn’t even blink; he’d dismiss it at once.

Quick footsteps approached from the hall, laughter, calls. Babel. Turkish, Lebanese, Vietnamese, Polish. The hospital brigade, back far too early. The bean-counter in him wanted to explode; the bookkeeper advised restraint. Dombrowski looked at the calendar: Wednesday. The mandatory reduction in overtime meant that they were quitting an hour earlier.

Ignoring the detective, he stood up and stormed out into the hall where a chattering cleaning crew was just in the process of breaking up for the day. At the back he discovered a lanky figure.

‘Josef!’ he bellowed.

The man turned around. Dombrowski realised the cop had followed him.

‘Where’s Kepler? Did you drop her off at the Underground station?’

Josef widened his eyes in surprise. He came closer. The chatter fell silent. The women in their blue smocks disappeared outside.

‘Kepler?’ Josef asked. ‘At the Underground?’

How stupid could one person be? Dombrowski gave him a sign, but Josef didn’t get it. Behind him the boy he had given Judith’s card to appeared. Great. He was even less able to put two and two together.

‘The homicide detective would like to talk to you.’

Dombrowski emphasised the title in such a way that chimps would have understood that something was wrong. But not Josef. His face went red, and he turned to his young charge.

‘Kai? Where’s Kepler?’

‘Out in the yard. I think she was getting ready to leave.’

The cop left them standing there and ran after the blue smocks.

‘Keep your trap shut!’ Dombrowski hissed. ‘Give me the card!’

‘I don’t have it anymore.’

‘What?’ Dombrowski bellowed. The boy recoiled. ‘You don’t say a thing. Understand? And you didn’t see her.’

‘But . . .’

‘Let me take care of this, OK?’

Josef and Kai nodded, but exchanged a look that looked an awful lot like ‘play along with the madman.’ Dombrowski decided he had said enough and followed Maike to the yard to save what he could of the situation.

Judith opened the back door of the van and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Something in here stank badly. Rotting rats? Dirty, damp cleaning rags? She was used to bad smells, but only where they belonged. Inside here it was supposed to smell of disinfectant. She was just about to climb in the back and take a look when she heard footsteps and someone addressing her.

‘Ms Kepler?’

Judith spun around. In front of her stood a slender man, halfway good-looking in a traditional way, and holding his ID under her nose.

‘Maike, homicide.’

‘Anyone can claim that.’

She grabbed the ID, read the name, and returned it with barely concealed contempt.

‘Franz Ferdinand. Whoever thought up that one . . .’

‘Where were you today?’

‘At Sankt Gertrauden Hospital.’

‘Business or pleasure?’

He examined the barely healed cut and the bruises on her face.

‘I was working. It’s called mopping by the yard. We only do the uncluttered surfaces and floors in the hospital.’

‘And that there?’ He pointed to her jaw.

‘A windowsill. Bending over.’

‘Witnesses?’

‘For what?’

She removed the time card from her overalls pocket and motioned to Josef and Kai, who had just trotted out of the barrack behind Dombrowski.

‘We’ll confirm that,’ Maike said. ‘How is it possible for you to work in Berlin and Malmö at the same time?’

‘Malmö?’ Judith repeated, perplexed.

‘You were seen in the vicinity of a crime scene that was subsequently cleaned in a professional way.’

Who would have thought it? Kaiserley had another talent. Josef came closer, examined the back of the vehicle and sniffed.

‘What’s stinking it up?’

‘I don’t know.’

Maike cast an interested glance into the van, before taking a couple of steps back and calling someone. In the meanwhile, Dombrowski wandered around it, kicked the tyres, and examined the mudguards. He spotted the missing side mirror and hissed. He appeared to be particularly interested in the front bumper. Judith remembered racing around the old fish factory grounds and the ugly sound the van made as it swiped the curb. She reached for the work bag that lay on the passenger seat. Maike noticed it immediately. He hung up and came back.

‘May I?’

Judith handed him the bag. He cast a glance inside and then gave it back.

‘Where’s your phone?’

‘With your colleagues in Sassnitz.’

‘This vehicle is confiscated. We have to search it.’

Dombrowski’s ears perked up.

‘We can’t do that. Kepler needs it tomorrow for . . .’

‘Kepler doesn’t need anything,’ Maike emphasised. ‘Now she’ll need to make a statement with an exhaustive list of her activities during the last forty-eight hours.’

‘I’d like to take a shower first and change clothes.’

‘Of course.’

Judith took the keys and threw them in Dombrowski’s direction, who didn’t react quickly enough and dropped them.

‘Can you drive the vehicle away? I have another appointment.’

‘It’d be best left back there.’ Maike pointed to a spot next to the bins. ‘Then the towing service can reach it more easily.’

Dombrowski huffed.

Judith threw Maike a telling look and scurried into the changing rooms. She could still hear Dombrowski calling for Josef behind her, but he had already disappeared. She waited until she heard the ignition. She had forty, maybe sixty seconds to do what she needed to do.

Judith left Homicide two hours later. It had been so easy. Basically she’d only said what she’d done during the day outside working hours: shopping, drinking wine, sorting through boxes of books, reading.

‘What are you reading at the moment?’

‘Fractional infinitesimal calculus.’

‘What? Mathematics?’

‘Physics.’

Maike wrote that down, and it was plain to see that this was only one statement among many that he doubted.

‘What do you actually want from me?’

‘Did you kill Christina Borg?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘And Irene Borg?’

‘Who’s that?’

For a second her nerves had begun to flutter. Malmö doesn’t exist, she told herself forcefully. You were never there. They want you to stay silent. You’ll be protected. Regardless of by whom.

Maike appeared to be satisfied with her answer.

‘So you went to Sassnitz to smash your mother’s gravestone, and then went immediately back to Berlin.’

‘Yes.’

‘Just so I’m understanding this correctly: why?’

Maike wasn’t paid to understand, just to write things down. Judith sighed.

‘For me, a person doesn’t stop existing just because they’re dead.’

‘You’re not alone in that. We all think that way. But that’s also why we honour the memory of the dead, not destroy it.’

‘Death isn’t a blanket absolution.’

‘It is the end of guilt and atonement.’

‘Is it really?’

Maike looked at her sharply. ‘What did Marianne Kepler do to you?’

‘Take a look at my file from the children’s home. Then you’ll know.’

‘I’d like to. It doesn’t exist.’

‘Then you look for it.’

But please not in my apartment, Judith thought. On her way to Dombrowski’s she had stopped off and stowed Borg’s autopsy report in a photo book from the sixties about Tuscany. Maike placed the deposition in front of her for her to sign, and then slipped it into a folder. He signalled that they were finished. Judith stood up.

‘Is that it?’

‘For the moment. You can’t leave the city and you have to keep yourself available.’

‘Of course.’

‘You have a lot of friends.’

She waited for a moment for him to continue, but he didn’t. She could have asked who he meant, but it was better to leave him under the impression that she knew just as much about her supposed friends as he did.

Four thirty. She took the next train to Marzahn and decided to wait. She’d kept her part of the bargain. Now it was their turn.

A little later, Maike entered the report onto the computer. From there it took various paths: one, to the internal police information system POLIKS, so everyone cleared for the case could access it there. An additional file landed directly on the desk of Ehrmann in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, where it was passed on to the relevant departments at Interpol and the Federal Criminal Police. However, the flag in the Schengen Information System kept it from being shared within the EU member states, including Sweden. Ehrmann himself passed it on to the desk that had ordered the flagging.

That was the office of the VS, the internal security agency, in Schwerin.

With the help of a Trojan that TT had sent to POLIKS, hidden almost undetectably inside a faked urgent message, an additional copy of the report landed on his laptop at nearly the same time. Together with the blocked search for Judith Kepler in connection with the murder of Irene Borg in Malmö, it reached Kellermann while he was in a meeting a short time later. The agenda was concerned with the organisation of the office’s move to Berlin and the question of whether the BND day care facilities should include a playgroup in addition to the after-school centre.